Trial nears in Gloucester for parents accused of keeping daughter in cage

Nearly two years ago the daughter of Brian and Shannon Gore was found in makeshift cage

March 04, 2013|By Matt Sabo, msabo@dailypress.com | 757-247-7872

GLOUCESTER — Jury selection begins Tuesday morning in the joint trials of Brian and Shannon Gore, the Hayes couple who are accused of penning their daughter in a makeshift cage for months or even years while the girl became emaciated and filthy as she wallowed in her own feces.

The Gores each face felony charges of aggravated malicious wounding and child abuse in the treatment of their daughter. An aggravated malicious wounding conviction carries a prison sentence of a minimum of 20 years to life.

Attorneys will attempt to seat a jury from a pool of 175 county residents, who will be called into Gloucester County Circuit Court three at a time to answer questions from attorneys until a jury is seated. While defense attorneys have asked to move the trial out of Gloucester because of pretrial publicity, Gloucester Circuit Judge R. Bruce Long has ruled that it will first be determined if attorneys can settle on a jury.

Documents filed in Gloucester County Circuit Court show that voir dire questions to prospective jurors include whether they have children, what they have read, seen or heard about the case through the media and whether "people should be accountable for what they do."

Attorneys involved in the case have been ordered by Long not to talk about the case to the media.

Among those expected to testify in the trials are physicians, medical experts and investigators who will shed light on the circumstances around the girl's discovery in April 2011 as well as the injuries she suffered physically and mentally. Her long-term outlook is a key component of the case, as Commonwealth's Attorney Holly Smith asserts the girl suffered permanent injuries — including "brain atrophy" — at the hands of her parents.

In an effort to show the girl has recovered, defense attorneys have successfully requested that she testify in court. The girl is now 8 years old and she has been adopted by a family outside of Gloucester.

Vivian Hamilton, an associate professor of law at the College of William and Mary who specializes in children and family law, said it's a very nuanced and complex issue to compel a child to testify. In this case, the Gores' daughter isn't being asked to testify about the nature of the allegations against her parents.

The defense attorneys want to show jurors the girl is healthy, happy and well-adjusted with no lingering effects. In a February court hearing, Ron Smith, an attorney for Shannon Gore, said he can't take the word of the girl's doctors to determine how the girl is doing. A pediatric neurologist has been retained to offer testimony whether the girl has suffered long-term brain injuries.

In order to convict Brian and Shannon Gore of aggravated malicious wounding, it has to be proven that permanent and significant physical injuries have occurred, Hamilton said.

"It is a gamble," Hamilton said. "To the extent that he is planning on bringing her into a strange courthouse environment and subjecting her to questioning."

Children can find testifying in court very intimidating and traumatizing, and they can be so anxious that researchers have argued that their anxiety interferes with their ability to give competent testimony, Hamilton said.

"You can imagine that the jury just may see this terrified and traumatized girl and if that's the impression that they are left with, then the fact that he may have shown her to be in relatively good physical health may be outweighed by her reaction in court, which no one can really anticipate," Hamilton said.

Holly Smith has asked Long to consider having the girl testify via two-way, closed-circuit television over concerns the girl will suffer emotional trauma from testifying. Long has not ruled on that request.

If the girl is called as a witness, Long wrote, he knows "all counsel will treat her with respect and the courtesy due a child of that age and circumstance."